Comment response:

Gaaira said:
I'm glad seeing you already updated this fic
This one is a heartwarming chapter~
The little Shinki is cute~ I like him even more... what a good n smart child~
Hope in the chapter there will be more interactions among Gaara, Shinki n Sasuke :D

Thank you very much! I'm glad you liked it!

Wolfsblood13 said:
I'm not very good at reviewing so I wanted to say that I very much enjoy reading this. Especially sasuke character it seems like when other author write him it's either make him to dark or give him or a different person altogether. And I never read a sasuke x garra; but it is seems be becoming my favorite very quickly.

Wow thanks so much! I was hoping they were both in character lol! Thanks for commenting!


Sasuke wakes the next morning in what he can only call indescribable pain.

Phantom limb pain struck Sasuke more often than he'd like to admit. His arm often burned rather painfully - and for hours or days at a time - like he was feeling Naruto's rasengan burning away his flesh all over again.

He used to wonder whether Naruto felt the same sensation, but now he doesn't even think about it. He just grits his teeth and tries to sit up, squinting at the sunlight streaming through the windows.

Sasuke's arm aches worse than it has in years, and truthfully he's never really known what to do about it. He was trained to manage pain - Orochimaru made sure of that - but he can only let what remains of his arm burn and burn until he's gritting his teeth and silently begging for it to pass quickly.

After all these years the pain still completely blindsided him and nearly brought him to his knees.

Not pleasant. It shook Sasuke in a quietly drastic and devastating way every time it happened. In other words, he hated it. It robbed him of sleep all too often, and sleep was the only reprieve Sasuke got from life, so he wasn't too thrilled when the pain flared.

Sasuke shivers awake in a cold sweat, pain coursing through him that lights his arm aflame, and he grits his teeth and forces himself to push it back, to ignore it…

The sudden knock at the door does little to distract him, but once it opens and Gaara steps through...his arm only aches until he takes a breath, and it takes Sasuke a long, confused moment to realize that Gaara's scent chases away the agonizing burning, achy feeling in his arm. Or what's left of it. The fact that the room suddenly smells of the Kazekage again helps the ache subside into a dull throb, and Sasuke finds himself taking a few deep breaths before he can even speak, relief coursing through him. He can breathe again, and no longer feels like he's been robbed of air.

Sasuke inhales, trying to soothe himself and be rid of the ache in his missing limb. Gaara's scent ebbs and flows as usual, and so does the relief from the pain in Sasuke's arm, but at this point he'll take anything. He grits his teeth as the burning returns in bursts, but its still preferable to how it usually was. Which was a steady, scorching pain that he was sure he deserved.

Gaara's brows furrow in concern as he looks at the Uchiha, "How're you doing?"

Sasuke tries to say something, but pain takes his breath once more and he grits his teeth again as the pain swells again.

Shinki clutches at his father's coat, following him and looking at Sasuke curiously. Gaara sets his food on the night table, giving Sasuke a considering look.

"You're unwell." Gaara observes, "Your scent has changed. What's wrong?"

Sasuke shakes his head, gritting his teeth. It's his problem. No one else's. He's inconvenienced Gaara enough, he thinks.

"It's nothing."

Gaara frowns at him - looking somewhat troubled - and watches him for a moment before the sweet smell of the room intensifies, and Sasuke's senses are overwhelmed once more.

Suddenly, the pain completely drains from him again. It's a relief, leaving only the aftershocks.

He looks to his side, tired eyes on the man setting a cup of water - next to the bowl he's prepared for him - on the nightstand next to the bed. It strikes him - once he can think without agony clouding his mind again - that Gaara has started to pump out stronger, more soothing pheromones in response to Sasuke's discomfort.

He knew - in a factual sense, maybe he read it somewhere - that omegas could put out different scents for when they felt safe, felt threatened or upset…

Or meant to soothe.

The scent goes softer, but it fills the space of the room quicker and a bit more thoroughly, to the point where Sasuke can smell little else. It immediately saps the pain and tension from his muscles and bones, even the torn ones of his severed arm that ached so viciously just a moment before.

It's like morphine and he sags against the mattress in relief, almost sinking into the pillows and blankets. He takes a deep breath.

It's like a natural high slugging through his veins, and he feels the pain curl away completely once more. He's too tired and pained to feel strange about the fact that his body reacts to Gaara's or what that means. No one else's scent has never affected him like this, but Sasuke isn't up for analyzing that right now. He'd have little idea what to think of it anyway.

But Gaara pauses in confusion. He looks surprised, like he initially didn't notice his scent filling the room as it did all of a sudden. His sand swirls about, just as unsettled as the Kazekage suddenly was. Shinki clings to his father's leg, clearly soothed by his scent as well and as unwilling as ever to be separated from his parent.

Sasuke watches Gaara silently panic for a moment. The confusion is so genuine on his face, and Sasuke has never seen Gaara so baffled before. Did he not mean to do it? Was it just a natural biological response? Does Gaara not even know what his scent is doing?

The Kazekage touches his neck gingerly, right on his scent gland, looking confused.

"I...is that me? I'm not quite sure what is going on." He says. He lightly touches his neck again, frowning.

"Why's that happening ?" Gaara mumbles, clearly to himself. He mumbles something about suppressants, looking troubled.

Sasuke feels his face start to flush, but he isn't quite sure why. His sense of smell was usually dampened, but all he can smell is Gaara and he starts to feel just a little bit...dizzy, and his head fills with a pleasant fog that he doesn't know how to get out of.

Sasuke usually only smelled things that were so potent he couldn't ignore it. He knew it was odd for an alpha to not pick up every scent, but after the massacre Sasuke couldn't smell things like he did before. It all smelled like blood. Or metal. Lightning during a storm. Or fire.

After the war the stench of all the death on the battlefield was all he could remember for a very, very long time.

But here, in Suna…he could pick up every little aspect of Gaara's scent. The rose. The lavender. Grass and sand. He could even scent Shinki on him. It was so...odd.

Sasuke wasn't used to being so... receptive. It was almost too much.

Gaara's scent makes him dizzy, and his head feels a bit...light.

He mentally scolds himself for having such a ridiculous reaction. He must still have a concussion, and his chakra is regenerating a bit sluggishly today. That must be it. He'd barely recovered half of his reserves, after all.

"I'm sorry, I... I can't seem to do much to stop it…" the Kazekage says, looking regretful.

Sasuke feels his face get uncomfortably warm. Then he feels like an idiot. Like a kid.

"Hn. It's helping. So."

Sasuke wasn't used to caring what he said. Especially not these days, when he cared about so little. He'd always just said what he thought no matter how anyone else felt about it, but for some reason with the Kazekage he finds himself a bit…hesitant? More thoughtful? Sasuke has no idea, he just knows it annoys him greatly. Why the hell couldn't he function?

He's been wracking his brain for weeks trying to figure this out, and all it's gotten him are more questions and frustration.

Gaara blinks at him, silent for a moment, "Oh. I'm glad. That's...good."

He realizes he hasn't seen so much expression from Gaara before.

He was usually pretty blank, but then again...if you looked closely and paid attention, you could clearly see his personality and little quirks coming through. Like how his eyes crinkled when he was amused, or the small, barely there smile he gave sometimes. He tilted his head in a way that distinctly reminded Sasuke of the red pandas that he often came across in the forests during his travels.

But it's not like Sasuke's thought about this a lot or anything.

Sasuke feels a flash of frustration. What the hell were these thoughts?! How the hell did he make them stop? What was wrong with him? He usually ignored everything, but he found himself noticing things about the Kazekage of all people.

Irritating.

"You look uncomfortable. I'll leave." Gaara says suddenly, turning to go. Shinki whines and reaches for him, and he picks up the child and hugs him close while he snuggles into his father's arms, the comforting scent seemingly lulling him to sleep.

Sasuke feels a distinct sense of loss as Gaara turns to excuse himself.

Sasuke frowns, "This is your room. If anything I should leave."

"You're the injured one." Gaara argues. Sasuke doesn't know what to say to that.

They stare at each other for a long moment, in silence. They stay like that for longer than either would admit, just picking apart the emotions in each other's eyes, unsure what to do.

"Fine." Sasuke concedes, moment breaking slightly, "But you still don't have to leave."

Was that odd to say? Sasuke didn't know what he was fucking doing.

This feels like dangerous new territory, like he's wandering around a dimension he's never visited before.

He guessed this was one reason why he had no friends other than Naruto. Usually he didn't care, but he found himself wishing he was better at communicating when he spoke to Gaara. He wasn't sure why though. Sasuke feels like he's missing something important and right in front of his face, but he's too blind to see it.

And that was endlessly frustrating.

"Okay." Gaara says. He pauses for a moment before he asks, "Are you still in pain?"

Sasuke nods. It was a dull throb again, and if Gaara left he's sure the scent he'd leave in the room would be enough to soothe him for a few hours at least, but...

"Then I...will just keep doing what I'm doing, then." The Kazekage says. Shinki huffs in his sleep, fidgeting slightly in Gaara's arms, oblivious to the adults.

Sasuke feels himself inwardly sigh in relief.

"You left the books."

"I did." Gaara says, "Did you like any?"

"A few, yeah."

"Whenever you're well enough feel free to find the mansion's library. There are more selections there."

"A library…"

"I take it it's been a while since you've visited one."

Sasuke takes another deep breath, relaxing further.

"The last was in the Hidden Waterfall." He says, "Though that was a bookshop, not a library."

"Was there nothing there that interested you?"

"No, not particularly."

Gaara adjusts Shinki, "That's too bad. Hopefully the library has better options for you."

They talk a little more about the books until Sasuke feels the pull of sleep tugging at him and then Sasuke has finished his food and Shinki wakes and sleepily asks him more innocently prying questions (while Gaara looks on, smiling lightly) before they all retire to bed and the apartment goes dark.

The thought hits him in the middle of the night. If he's in Gaara's bed, where is Gaara sleeping?

On the fifth night he finds out, because in his tired stumbling he accidentally nudges open Shinki's room door instead of the bathroom. Gaara is curled up with his son, the both of them slumbering softly. Shinki clutches at his father's sleep shirt, stirring briefly before settling. He's never seen Gaara without his coat, and he's a bit surprised at how small he really is. Gaara usually exuded such a quietly powerful energy that made him look... bigger. At least, that's what Sasuke thought. But here...

Sasuke closes the door, unwilling to disturb them further.

He remembers the few times he got to tuck Sarada in, and he feels distinctly lonely for the rest of the night.


Sasuke is in Gaara's home for two weeks while his chakra replenishes itself.

He reads.

Books appear at his bedside. He knows it's Gaara because the volumes smell like him, but he picks through them and gathers a few he's interested in. Gaara leaves him piles of selections to choose from while the Kazekage is working during the day. The apartment is quiet without Gaara and his son, but Sasuke mostly just sleeps and reads, so it's fine. His chakra regeneration starts to pick up at around the seventh day, gathering momentum and replenishing quicker with every passing day after that, and he avoids thinking about having to go back to Konoha and report to Naruto after this.

Sasuke recovers, thinks himself in frustrated circles about the Sand's Kazekage and reads.


When he's well enough to leave, he finds Gaara handing him a bento and his pack filled with slim novels and scrolls for him to read on his journey back to the Leaf for his debriefings. He'd gotten several letters from Naruto over the past two weeks, and he knew he could only stall for so long. He couldn't avoid it forever, no matter how much he never wanted to see that place again.

Sasuke looks back at Suna and feels a strange sense of loss.